What I Did for Earth Hour
Earth Hour? “What’s that?” you say? Well, as best as I can figure from spending less than thirty seconds on the site (to which I won’t link :), it’s an organized effort to get people to turn of their lights for one hour in an attempt to save the Earth from us evil humans. Seeing as how I reject the current anthropomorphic global warming scaremongering going on, I celebrated something different: Human Achievement Hour, which is a counter-effort to “salute the people who keep the lights on and produce the energy that helps make human achievement possible.”
So what did I do? I left the light on in the kitchen (though, to be honest, I forget it was on and was just too lazy to get up and turn it off), left my thermostat set to a comfortable temperature (just like our president does), and watched a movie on blu-ray (Get Smart) on my giant LCD TV while a fire burned amongst my gas logs. All of this AFTER I watched Bolt on the same TV with my boys as we ate the popcorn we popped in the microwave oven in the aforementioned brightly illuminated kitchen. It was a great evening.
I can imagine that some of you may be upset with me and other who celebrated Human Achievement Hour. “Don’t you care about your planet?” some might scream at us, given the chance. I would guess that most of us do, but here’s the cool part. We were able to enjoy the fruits of the human labor we celebrated guilt free because of all the Earth Hour celebrations (truth be told, though, this Saturday evening wasn’t really all that different from any other, but that’s another story). At any rate, since all the warm-mongerers were reducing their consumption, I was able to maintain status quo on mine with a net neutral environmental impact (the existence of which I’m granting solely for the sake of argument). If there’s anything I’ve learned from Al Gore, it’s that I can maintain the lifestyle I choose guilt free as long as someone else is making some sort of sacrifice in my stead. Think of it as Environmental Indulgences. If it’s good enough for the Pope of the Church of Man’s Ruining Everything, then it’s good enough for me.